[Peak Oil] Nuclear Power running down, no-one seems to care

[Sea Skimmer]

In addition to the problemwhere to put the waste-for tens of thousands of years.

How about in the ground, which already contained all that radioactivity to begin with? Remember nuclear power does not create radioactivity, it makes existing radioactivity be released more quickly. The radiation levels from spent fuel drop drastically after a matter of only a few years, if we can keep the stuff safe for a thousand then we really don’t need to worry about it. Heck, we’ve found naturally occurring nuclear reactors in Gabon, and yet the nation is not awash in radiation.

One of my friend's mothers works for the Department Of Energy, on the surveying and use of Yucca Mountain. and I remember her discussing with me the problems with using Yucca mountain as a storage facility for waste-it is not 100% stable, and will probably not remain so for the years the waste needs to be stored-so the problem remains:

Nowhere is 100% stable; that sounds like another case of anti nuclear absolutism. The waste will be inside of steel casks, which because the radiation heats them wont get wet or rust unless the water table rises over 100ft… under a desert mountain. Even if the mountain did have an earthquake, that’s really unlikely to break open several inch thick steel, and even if it did then that water table still has to rise for the radiation to actually travel anywhere. I’m not seeing the big risk; and its certainly not greater then the risk of current storage methods. The plan is to backfill the tunnels in such a manner that they can be opened back up in the future too; should we have second thoughts about the safety of the location or find a better way of dealing with waste.

Where to dump the waste?

I'm gonna suggest a certain ranch in Crawford Texas for starters.

I’m sure Bush would be quite happen to get billions of dollars to store nuclear waste on his property, but its probably not zoned for that kind of industrial activity. The current method of ‘long term’ storage is simple concrete silos above ground, and you could easily have hundreds of those on the ranch.

Hell I’ll take a shipment for my backyard if it can be arranged

[[R_H]]

DrMckay, according to the wiki article on the Sierra Club (yeah I know, wiki) they oppose building new reactors until "until specific inherent safety risks are mitigated by conservative political policies, and regulatory agencies are in place to enforce those policies"

From the Sierra Club website
Sierra Club Conservation Policies

Nuclear Power

The Sierra Club opposes the licensing, construction and operation of new nuclear reactors utilizing the fission process, pending:

1. Development of adequate national and global policies to curb energy over-use and unnecessary economic growth.
2. Resolution of the significant safety problems inherent in reactor operation, disposal of spent fuels, and possible diversion of nuclear materials capable of use in weapons manufacture.
3. Establishment of adequate regulatory machinery to guarantee adherence to the foregoing conditions. The above resolution does not apply to research reactors.

Adopted by the Board of Directors, December 12-13, 1974

Events at Three Mile Island Nuclear Plant reaffirm the validity of the Sierra Club policy on the lack of safety in nuclear plants and in the nuclear fuel cycle. These problems can lead to adverse health and environmental effects. The possibility of human failure dooms the nuclear fuel cycle to unacceptable risks. The Sierra Club continues to oppose construction of any new commercial nuclear fission power plants. Further, the Sierra Club supports the systematic reduction of society's dependence on nuclear fission as a source of electric power and recommends a phased closure and decommissioning of operating commercial nuclear fission electric power reactors.

Adopted by the Board of Directors, May 5-6. 1979

Consistent with its prior nuclear policy, the Sierra Club advocates the following measures to provide greater protection for public health and safety:

1. Federal legislation to require Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) licensing of both military and nonmilitary radioactive waste management facilities, including research and development facilities.
2. Federal legislation to require Nuclear Regulatory Commission regulation and control of all shipments of radioactive waste, whether of military or nonmilitary origin, and all commercial radioactive materials. The Sierra Club also supports state and local efforts to provide greater protection in the transportation of radioactive waste and commercial radioactive materials.
3. Presidential appointment of a special citizens' advisory group to advise the president, Congress, and the NRC on the implementation of reforms recommended by the Kemeny Commission and such additional reforms as may be recommended by other studies now underway of the events leading to the Three Mile Island accident.
4. The making of appointments to this advisory group, to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and to staff positions in the NRC from a pool of individuals not committed by past experience to the nuclear industry. Such appointment should have a demonstrated commitment to public health and safety.

Adopted by the Board of Directors, February 2-3, 1980

Safety Margins for Water-Cooled Nuclear Plants

The Sierra Club is concerned that the safety margins in some water-cooled reactors operating, under construction, or planned, are not sufficient to avoid accidental release of radioactive material in all plausibly foreseeable circumstances. We believe that the maximum allowable power, fuel temperature, and heat transfer rates should be reduced to significantly less than the original design specification limits in order to increase the safety margin until adequate safety research has been completed.

Price-Anderson Act

As a means of internalizing the cost incident to the use of nuclear power, the Sierra Club favors the repeal of the limited liability provisions of the Price-Anderson Act.

Adopted by the Board of Directors, October 21-22, 1972

Breeder Reactors

The Sierra Club reaffirms its opposition to the funding of breeder reactor research and ancillary projects. This includes monitored retrievable storage for spent fuel except at reactor sites, reprocessing, the liquid metal converter, the water-cooled breeder, and the fusion/breeder programs.

Adopted by the Board of Directors, November 15, 1986

Fusion Reactors

The dangers posed by the probable releases of tritium used by fusion plants, the problems with decommissioning these plants, and their high costs lead the Sierra Club to believe that the development of fusion reactors to generate electricity should not be pursued at this time. We are not opposed to safe and proper research as long as it is not at the expense of more benign "soft energy path" technology.

Adopted by the Board of Directors, November 15, 1986

Notice that there have been no newer policies made (that are visible on their website).

From NGOs SAY STOP FINANCING NUCLEAR EXPORTS

Dave Martin, Nuclear Policy Consultant for the Sierra Club of Canada and author of the Canadian section of the NGO report, stated "The nuclear industry is in decline, but it’s too early to dance on its grave. The Canadian government is fighting to continue state export financing and other nuclear subsidies. Canada’s pro-nuclear position puts it on the wrong side of the fence for fighting climate change and promoting green energy."

[DrMckay]

I joined the Sierra Club because I like what they are doing with conservation, and I enjoy the hikes they have.

However, I (as stated before) consider their views on nuclear power to be shortsighted at best, and ignorant at worst.

[DavidEC]

How viable is it to dump it down mineshafts and then seal them? Putting a mile or more of dirt between us and it surely has to make it safe.

[Sea Skimmer]

How viable is it to dump it down mineshafts and then seal them? Putting a mile or more of dirt between us and it surely has to make it safe.

Mineshafts tend to dip into the water table, so most of them would be bad sites. Yucca Mountain is a good site not only because it’s in a desert that’s been desert for a very long time (some deserts like the Sahara are geologically speaking very new occurrences), but also because it rises above the surrounding topography. That means the waste can be buried under a great depth of rock, while still being high above the water table.

Water contamination is the only way the radiation will ever be able to harm anything, it sure isn’t going to physically move and it’s certainly not going to burst into the atmosphere. But even then, most solid nuclear waste isn’t even water soluble and thus cannot cause long term water contamination. We’d be stupid to gamble on that for our safety, but as I’ve pointed out the casks are absurdly rust resistant because of the waste’s own heat. This heat is expected to not only keep the casks dry, it will dry out all the surrounding rock for a considerable distance.

The plan for Yucca mountain is to ‘install’ the waste casks and then keep the tunnels open for at least 20 years of monitoring while that drying out occurs, before sealing them up.

Note that Yucca Mountain is not the only underground permanent nuclear waste storage site in the works. I’m pretty sure Finland has already begun work on tunnels inside of granite outcroppings for the same purpose

[Androsphinx]

How viable is it to dump it down mineshafts and then seal them? Putting a mile or more of dirt between us and it surely has to make it safe.

Two words: Water table.

[Androsphinx]

Mineshafts tend to dip into the water table, so most of them would be bad sites. Yucca Mountain is a good site not only because it’s in a desert that’s been desert for a very long time (some deserts like the Sahara are geologically speaking very new occurrences), but also because it rises above the surrounding topography. That means the waste can be buried under a great depth of rock, while still being high above the water table.

Water contamination is the only way the radiation will ever be able to harm anything, it sure isn’t going to physically move and it’s certainly not going to burst into the atmosphere. But even then, most solid nuclear waste isn’t even water soluble and thus cannot cause long term water contamination. We’d be stupid to gamble on that for our safety, but as I’ve pointed out the casks are absurdly rust resistant because of the waste’s own heat. This heat is expected to not only keep the casks dry, it will dry out all the surrounding rock for a considerable distance.

The plan for Yucca mountain is to ‘install’ the waste casks and then keep the tunnels open for at least 20 years of monitoring while that drying out occurs, before sealing them up.

Note that Yucca Mountain is not the only underground permanent nuclear waste storage site in the works. I’m pretty sure Finland has already begun work on tunnels inside of granite outcroppings for the same purpose

What he said...

[DavidEC]

Aha, should have realised that, cheers.

[J]

On the topic of nuclear power, Power to Save the World: The Truth About Nuclear Energy by Gwyneth Cravens should be essential reading for everyone. It explains in a clear easy to understand fashion why nuclear is the safest form of power generation, and addresses concerns such as waste storage, terrorism, TMI, Chernobyl, and all the issues which have been drilled into our perception of nuclear reactors by the media and environmental groups.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

And the Yucca Mountain issue completely ignores the fact that the amount of waste could be vastly reduced if we engaged in reprocessing, which is much safer than storage, including from a security standpoint, but was banned because it was unsafe (which is to show how utterly insane our government is) from a security standpoint, the rationale being that it could be stolen during the transport to and from the reprocessing facilities, as if it couldn't be stolen during transport to the storage site as well, with the added amusement that nobody can steal the stuff anyway, as it's locked into multi-tonne utterly impact resistant casings which will survive unscathed collisions at a hundred miles an hour or more.

[DavidEC]

I still remember reading about how a few hundred kilograms of plutonium was transported from Japan to Britain (or some such distance) in a 100-tonne steel casket aboard a dedicated ship with armed security detail.

[Illuminatus Primus]

How about the fact that Yucca Mountain's backyard is the fucking Nevada Test Site, so radioactive at the surface only robots can go into certain areas of it. But even the slightest concrete/steel/granite entombed waste will make it just too much!

Whatever, we'll inevitably reprocess the waste eventually because we're going to need all the fissile material we can get to keep the lights on.

[fnord]

What sort of volume reduction are you looking at with reprocessing used nuclear fuel?

I thought it was around an order of magnitude (ie, ~90%) once you take the waste generated by the reprocessing into account, but I'm most likely wrong.

[Junghalli]

How about the fact that Yucca Mountain's backyard is the fucking Nevada Test Site, so radioactive at the surface only robots can go into certain areas of it. But even the slightest concrete/steel/granite entombed waste will make it just too much!

You have to remember that the anti-nuke movement, like the anti-GMO movement, derives a lot of its inertia from primal fears encouraged by public ignorance and enthusiastically stoked by luddite morons. Getting people to accept nuclear power isn't just a matter of appealing to their logic, it'll also be a matter of breaking the very powerful emotional "nukes=bomb/poison/death/mutations/evil!" association a huge percentage of the population has in their heads.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

What sort of volume reduction are you looking at with reprocessing used nuclear fuel?

I thought it was around an order of magnitude (ie, ~90%) once you take the waste generated by the reprocessing into account, but I'm most likely wrong.

That's correct, and reprocessed fuel used in reactors can of course be reprocessed again, etc. Just slight amounts of new fuel needs to be added each time. Actually I think the number may be even higher than 90%. It's not perfect, but very close to it.

[Gil Hamilton]

And the Yucca Mountain issue completely ignores the fact that the amount of waste could be vastly reduced if we engaged in reprocessing, which is much safer than storage, including from a security standpoint, but was banned because it was unsafe (which is to show how utterly insane our government is) from a security standpoint, the rationale being that it could be stolen during the transport to and from the reprocessing facilities, as if it couldn't be stolen during transport to the storage site as well, with the added amusement that nobody can steal the stuff anyway, as it's locked into multi-tonne utterly impact resistant casings which will survive unscathed collisions at a hundred miles an hour or more.

No, what Carter did was sillier than that. He didn't sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation thing because it was unsafe from a security standpoint, he did it as a political sign that the US was firmly against the spread of nuclear arms.

What's bad is that any President could sign an executive order and reverse it and alot of the waste could be recycled. There are hospitals that are pulling their hair because they have to have special plants to produce the radioactive materials used in various x-rays and dyes, which could be extracted from nuclear waste. Nuclear waste is interesting that way.

Hell, I proposed that since nuclear waste is currently being thermally active and bubbling away in pools of water that even with Carter's Stupid Idea they could still use the thing as a heat reservoir and sip some kWh off of it since it's just sitting there anyway.

[Gil Hamilton]

You have to remember that the anti-nuke movement, like the anti-GMO movement, derives a lot of its inertia from primal fears encouraged by public ignorance and enthusiastically stoked by luddite morons. Getting people to accept nuclear power isn't just a matter of appealing to their logic, it'll also be a matter of breaking the very powerful emotional "nukes=bomb/poison/death/mutations/evil!" association a huge percentage of the population has in their heads.

It's one of the sad side effects of the first practical application of nuclear power being to incinerate a couple cities. Unfortunately, that leaves are rather negative public perception of something.

[Sea Skimmer]

That's correct, and reprocessed fuel used in reactors can of course be reprocessed again, etc. Just slight amounts of new fuel needs to be added each time. Actually I think the number may be even higher than 90%. It's not perfect, but very close to it.

90% is the normal ballpark figure. The exact figure will depend on just how much effort you want to put into things. For example the plutonium removed from the reprocessed fuel would normally be considered waste, but if you wanted you could blend it into MOX fuel and use it in reactors. However then you need plants to make that fuel, and the reactors that will use it need to be modified as well. A handful of reactor in the US already can run on MOX, as part of a program (funded by the US taxpayer even as the Russians build new nuclear missiles)to destroy Russian plutonium stocks. Likewise Thorium and U-233 are also removed and might be blended back into fuel, but you’d need yet another set of specialist facilities and dedicated reactors for this.

It might sound like a great idea to reprocess as much of the shit back into fuel as possible, but while this cuts down on high level waste, it also creates huge quantities of mid and low level waste which still present disposal problems.

[Sea Skimmer]

I still remember reading about how a few hundred kilograms of plutonium was transported from Japan to Britain (or some such distance) in a 100-tonne steel casket aboard a dedicated ship with armed security detail.

The Euros and Japan actually built a special class of five ships which do nothing but transport nuclear waste; they’ve made hundreds of trips so far without a single accident. The waste cask has it own individual tracking beacon, and of course they designed the ships to be highly resistant to sinking. The shipment you’re thinking of was in 1998 and involved reprocessed waste suspended in glass being transported from France to Japan. The waste had originally traveled from Japan to Britain for reprocessing back in the 1970s but somehow they never quite got around to it until the 1990s when the job was subbed out to a French firm. I do believe they made an umber of shipments since then.

Within the US, nuclear waste has been moved thousands of times and accident has ever occurred. Excluding the hazy Soviet experience, as far as its known high level nuclear waste has NEVER leaked during transport.

[Patrick Degan]

the most important point was that we've gone almost nowhere compared with 2002.

Why would anyone expect us to have gone anywhere since 2002? It takes a long time to plan, approve, construct, and commission a nuclear power plant, and in 2002 the Bush Administration was still waxing poetic about how "blessed" America was with natural resources. The idea of actually worrying about how much power we'd have was totally off the radar screen at the time.

And besides, since Jeebus is due to come back down to Earth any day now, why worry?

[SCRawl]

I still remember reading about how a few hundred kilograms of plutonium was transported from Japan to Britain (or some such distance) in a 100-tonne steel casket aboard a dedicated ship with armed security detail.

The Euros and Japan actually built a special class of five ships which do nothing but transport nuclear waste; they’ve made hundreds of trips so far without a single accident. The waste cask has it own individual tracking beacon, and of course they designed the ships to be highly resistant to sinking. The shipment you’re thinking of was in 1998 and involved reprocessed waste suspended in glass being transported from France to Japan. The waste had originally traveled from Japan to Britain for reprocessing back in the 1970s but somehow they never quite got around to it until the 1990s when the job was subbed out to a French firm. I do believe they made an umber of shipments since then.

Within the US, nuclear waste has been moved thousands of times and accident has ever occurred. Excluding the hazy Soviet experience, as far as its known high level nuclear waste has NEVER leaked during transport.

I remember the shipment to which I think David is referring, and it was plutonium (from France) for their fast breeder reactors. It happened while I was in university. I recall that there were a number of countries who didn't want the ship in their waters, and so the route they took ended up being lengthy.

[phongn]

It might sound like a great idea to reprocess as much of the shit back into fuel as possible, but while this cuts down on high level waste, it also creates huge quantities of mid and low level waste which still present disposal problems.

There has been quite a bit of work on fast-reactor research that plans to 'burn' a lot of the extra waste to minimize the remaining amounts. None will probably be built anytime soon (and the experimental IFR was killed in the 1990s)

[Zixinus]

We need a collective tread regarding nuclear power in the archives.

Anyway, one of the key problems facing nuclear problems is the lack of research, and the ridiculous difficulty to get an experimental unit from concept to paper. And I mean more difficult then what would warrant getting a nuclear unit from concept to paper, the type where ignorant and mindless bureaucrats make decisions that they could not and should not really be able to, at their own leisure pace.

[Ma Deuce]

The Greens must be more a cult than an environmental group if they haven't clued in yet that nuclear is the only fucking way to go.

Unfortunately, most major Green parties and organizations (especially Greenpeace) seem to be little more than glorified Luddites, bereft of any real solutions. What I want to know is, why does it seem that almost all Socialist political parties are opposed to nuclear power as well? I thought Socialists were supposed to be for progress? Is it that they equate nuclear power with nuclear weapons?

[kinnison]

I suppose that way you could get some kWh free from rainfall too. That's a slick idea.

Typically pumped storage loses more energy from evaporation more then it gains from rainfall. The locations you get to use generally just don’t have much of a drainage basin, or else you’d already have a waterway to dam up. Partly as a result of evaporation losses typical pumped storage efficiency is in the range of 75-85%, though under optimal conditions (short pipes, minimal evaporation, best equipment ect…) this can go as high as 98%.

I don't claim to know whether you're right. However, pumped storage is an alternative to having to spin up, at times of high demand, expensive-to-run and inefficient plants that run on such things as gas turbines. Of course there is also the cost of building those extra plants in the first place! It also helps if the uphill pond is deep rather than wide, of course, to slow down evaporation loss, and also if it's cold - so a mountain site is probably best. There are undoubtedly quite a lot of mountain areas that don't get much rainfall and could be used for this.

Pumped storage is probably much more useful when you have a good power grid. One of the few things that works well in the UK (probably because of the short distances) is the national power grid, and in fact there is a pumped storage system in North Wales that appears to work quite well. I've been there (they do guided tours) and it's damn impressive. It apparently saves quite a few tens of millions per year in fuel costs.

Link: http://www.fhc.co.uk/dinorwig.htm